CONG POL

This is a class blog for the students of POLSCI 426: Congressional Politics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Children's Health Care on Agenda

This Washington Post article explains the current disagreement between Democrats and Republicans in Congress concerning the state-federal Children's Health Insurance Program. Democrats tend to favor a more robust program role that covers more children from families in different economic brackets while Republicans tend to favor a more limited role where the neediest children receive the assistance.
Below are the current ideal points and one possible outcome for the new proposal:
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the program needs 13-15 billion above current levels to keep covering the same number of children it currently covers. President Bush's administration has proposed 4.8 billion for the new budget. The Democratic majority in Congress has proposed 50 billion over the next five years. I believe the new budget will fall somewhere close to the 13-15 billion needed to support the current number of children at a point between the President and the majority in Congress's ideal points.
Posted by Christopher Thompson at 3/03/2007 09:49:00 PM

1 comment:

"JPO" Joseph Ohler said...

There are two dimensions to this vote: Funding level and gate-keeping (eligibility criteria) level. Given the fixed preferences of members of Congress are fixed, any lobbying by state governors for increased federal funding and more lax eligibility criteria for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) should already be controlled for. A considerable Democratic majority in both the House and Senate means that the median congressional preference is to grant more funding for CHIP than the current level (the status quo on the funding dimension) as well as relax eligibility criteria so that more citizens will be able to use that increased funding (relative to the status quo on the eligibility dimension). Hence, Congress is likely to increase CHIP funding and reduce the gate-keeping function of the applicant screening process. If Bush vetoes its first proposal, Congress is likely to garner some moderate Republican votes for a modest fund increase and relaxation of gate-keeping standards to achieve a two-thirds congressional Condorcet winner in this two-dimensional spatial model of decision-making.

3/03/2007 11:21 PM

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